Rest as a Harvest
We live in a world that often glorifies speed, faster work, quicker results, and constant productivity. Yet true harvests don’t happen overnight. Crops need time to root, grow, and ripen. The earth has its own rhythm, and nature reminds us that rest and patience are as essential as action. I am grateful to be learning to flow with this earth rhythm.
Emerson said it simply: “Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” This is a truth I’ve had to learn, sometimes the hard way. For me, rest is not just about lying down or sleeping. It has been about cultivating patience with myself, with others, and with life’s slower unfolding.
A Journey of Sound and Silence
In April 2021, my world changed when I lost hearing in one ear and developed hyperacusis, a condition where ordinary sounds felt painfully loud. Suddenly, the everyday noises of life , dishes clattering, dogs barking, toilets flushing became overwhelming. I had to retreat, headphones on, to protect myself from a world that felt too sharp and too loud.
For years, from 2021 through early 2025, I rarely went anywhere without protection. It was isolating, exhausting, and sometimes frightening. And yet, in that enforced quiet, I learned a new kind of rest. I had to slow down. I had to be patient with myself. I had to allow healing to unfold at its own pace, rather than forcing it.
Learning Patience Through Healing
Over time, my brain began to rewire itself. In March of this year, I noticed something shift. Sounds that once triggered fear no longer felt like lions waiting to pounce. I could relax more. My body, my nervous system, and my spirit were finally finding rest.
It has been a slow journey, helped along by encouragement from others, even strangers in the hyperacusis community online, who reminded me to be brave, to try simple things like supplements, and, most importantly, to go out into the world without overprotecting myself. Step by step, I began to trust again.
Patience was my constant companion. Some days I made progress. Other days I felt broken again. But rest was always waiting when I remembered to soften, to breathe, to let go of rushing.
Compassion for Hidden Struggles
This experience has also deepened my compassion for others. Many people carry hidden disabilities, conditions that are invisible to the outside world but deeply shape their daily lives. Just as I needed patience from those around me when I couldn’t handle loud music or bustling spaces, others need patience for their unseen battles.
Rest, I’ve come to see, is not selfish. It is a practice of honoring our humanity and extending grace to one another.
Friendship and Rest
One of the unexpected gifts of creating the Women’s Group at Unity Palo Alto has been realizing how friendship itself can be restful. Yes, we play and laugh and dance, but we also create safe space to simply be ourselves. Sometimes rest is not solitude but the relief of being accepted exactly as we are, without masks or explanations.
Friends like my sister Suzi, my friend Mary, and the women of Unity have been anchors for me. With them, I’ve learned that joy is a form of rest, too. Laughter restores. Shared cups of tea soothe. Even dancing can be a kind of rest, a rest from seriousness, from heaviness, from fear.
Harvesting Patience
As I look back on these past years, I see a harvest of patience. I didn’t choose the circumstances, but I did choose how to meet them. Slowly, gently, with gratitude, I learned to rest in the present moment. Even when I could not change what was happening, I could pause. I could breathe. I could trust that healing, like crops in a field, would come in its season.
Emerson’s wisdom rings true: the pace of nature is the pace of patience. And nature, in her patience, produces beauty, strength, and abundance.
Grateful for Rest
Today, I am deeply grateful for rest. Grateful for the healing that comes when I stop pushing. Grateful for the patience that allows me to meet life gently. Grateful for the friends and teachers who have walked beside me.
Rest is not an interruption of life’s work. It is the work. It is what allows us to harvest joy, wisdom, and resilience. Gratitude for rest reminds us that slowing down is not failure. It is faith, a trust in the pace of nature, in the unfolding of healing, and in the harvest yet to come.